Duolingo · Product sense · Entry · 60 to 90 minutes

Duolingo for a learner with a trip in four weeks

Duolingo is a mobile and web app that helps people learn languages through short lessons and practice exercises. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

User empathy
Scoping
Prioritisation
Metric design
Product sense

The situation

The Director of Product has asked you to propose a focused improvement for learners who open Duolingo because they have an international trip coming up soon and want to handle basic conversations. Support tickets, app reviews, and user research all point to the same pattern: these learners are highly motivated for a few weeks, but many feel the course is too broad for their deadline and they stop after a few days. Duolingo is strong at building daily learning habits over time, but this use case is different. People want confidence in practical situations like greetings, ordering food, asking for directions, and handling simple check in moments. Why now: summer travel is approaching, and the team wants to test whether Duolingo can better serve a short term goal without weakening the core learning experience. Assume the following numbers are illustrative: among new learners who mention travel as a goal in onboarding, 35 percent are inactive by day 7, and only 12 percent complete enough lessons to reach basic travel topics within four weeks. The tension is speed versus learning quality, and short term utility versus Duolingo's habit based model.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product proposal.

Your answer must

Define the target user segment clearly, including who is in scope and who is out of scope for the first version.
State the user problem and explain why the current Duolingo experience does not serve this four week travel goal well enough.
Propose one primary feature or product change for a first version, and describe the core user flow in 4 to 6 steps.
Choose one north star success metric and 2 to 3 supporting metrics, including at least one guardrail metric.
Explain the main tradeoffs and why your proposal is a better first step than at least one plausible alternative.
Give a simple rollout plan for v1, including what market or language pair you would start with and why.

Constraints

You have one quarter for v1 and a small team: 1 designer, 4 engineers, and shared data science support.
Use existing Duolingo course content, speech, and notification systems for v1. Do not assume net new live tutoring, travel partnerships, or a brand new curriculum from scratch.
Start with mobile only, iOS and Android. Web can come later.
For the first launch, focus on one language pair, English speakers learning Spanish.

Format

Structure your answer in clear sections: user, problem, proposal, metrics, tradeoffs, and rollout. Keep it practical and scoped to one first release.